The Pope Totally Stole My Idea

I have survived my first...5 days! I expect my arrival is blessed, as the Pope took a jaunt in his Popemobile through a very bitter, atheist Edinburgh (I mean really now, http://www.goodwithoutgod.org.uk/) in order too meet with the Queen. I did not attend, as I was too busy recovering from my brief and nauseating attempt at being a Cool Scottish Student (read: dancing blearily while being covered in UV-bubbles).

Having discovered I am not actually strong and brave enough to be a Cool Scottish Student, I quickly become a homebody again. Which is not all too terrible, since my view looks out over a tiny golf-course that little men with their greyhounds like to use to putter around in, and a bit further in the distance, The Castle:

My room itself is shaped like the long tetris piece, which is an upgrade from pie-slice-shaped, because it does not make me hungry for pie, and my chest of drawers is perfect for Bilbo Baggins but terrible for Ariana the Nordic Giant. Flatmate #1 is Irish, and thus has a name full of unpronounceable vowels, and Flatmate #2 is Indian, and thus has a name full of unpronounceable consonants.

Academically, I may be running home weeping before christmas time, seeing as I have apparently gone from someone who gained an important bit of paper for blathering on about ~theory~ and ~magic~ and ~women~ and ~the medieval body~ to someone who is expected to gain an important bit of paper for taking SCIENCE SCIENCE ALL THE TIME SCIENCE. There will be Syntax and Stats and Computer Modelling and DEATH. The other people in my department have several excellent qualities, among them that they are from places like Australia, Cyprus, and Estonia, and also they all have far more knowledge about this than I do, so at the very least I will have friends I force to do my linguistic bidding. Don't believe me? See Schedule:

Semester 1:
Origins of Language
Foundations of evolution
Intro to stats and experimental design
Intro to syntax
Intro to phonology & phonetics
Human evolution

Semester 2:
Evolution of Communication
Biolinguistics
Current issues in language evolution
Simulating language
Evolutionary psychology

Auditing:
Psychology of language learning
Maturational constraints on language acquisition

This, I think, is the most effective way of dealing with my woeful lack of a social life. I will have no time for one! Over and out, then, until my life contains something more exciting than UV-bubbles.